Always Us
by KrisEleven
Summary: They were meant to be together, but what if Niko had not saved them? What would they have become then? Dark!Circle written for icecreamlova.


A/N TOTALLY Rosa's fault, and I mean totally; I take no responsibility for this. I hope you like it, my friend.

* * *

><p>"<em>I never expected things to turn out the way they have."<em>

"_Who could?" Tris inquired. "We didn't know we had magic, for one thing."_

"_Niko did," replied Daja with a glance at the man, "Just like you knew where we were, when no one else did –"_

"_Or no one else cared," murmured Briar._

_Briar's Book__, Tamora Pierce._

* * *

><p>That autumn, Niko had a fleeting impulse to return to Summersea.<p>

There were his friends at the Winding Circle temple, of course. He had not visited in with Moonstream, Rosethorn, Lark, and Crane for almost a year, now. On top of that, though, there was a nagging feeling that only came to him when he caught the edge of a premonition... but it was a long trip from the south of Janaal all the way back across the Pebbled Sea, and the winter storms would be starting soon.

Because he really didn't want the bother of the travel, he put it off for two days, by which time there was a mage's conference announced in Balgont and Niko was going west, again. He missed the message sent by the Duke of Emelan by less than one day; the messenger who carried a request for Niko's assistance in finding the Duke's nephew, who had been on Hatar Island with his wife and daughter when the smallpox epidemic began, arrived at the inn where Niko had been staying in the afternoon, when Niko had rode out just before dawn.

As he travelled, Niko thought, briefly, that it felt like something was... wrong. Like he was forgetting something important. But after a mental inventory of everything he had packed and all his travel plans, he dismissed the feeling as unfounded and concentrated on his work.

The messenger returned the letter to Vedris unread.

* * *

><p><em>Sandry groped behind her for her workbasket and froze. Muffled voices cried out on the other side of the wall. The girl swallowed hard. Had things gotten this bad? Was she going to start to imagine people when they were not there?<em>

_Sandry's Book__, Tamora Pierce._

* * *

><p>Her threads had run out.<p>

She tried to figure out the problem as she focused on the braids and the light it created, but she couldn't find a solution. Her mind struggled and caught on the _nonononotthedarkplease,_ and the fear that she was well and truly crazy now – no search party had come into rescue her, though she could have sworn she had heard _someone_ – and the knowledge that was creeping up on her in a voice that sounded like her, only too much older told her quite calmly that she was going to die in this room, alone.

The light would go out once there was no more thread to braid. And, soon enough, the braid ran out. Sandry reached the end and stared, her blue eyes wide as the light flickered, dimmed and then went out.

It took her two hours to start screaming, but she did, banging on the door to her prison and calling for someone – _anyone_ – to save her.

It took her another three hours to lose her voice completely.

She was curled in a corner near the door, exhausted, her hands bloody and her throat scratched raw, but too scared to sleep when the door opened. She hadn't even heard the footsteps or voices outside in the corridor, hadn't heard anyone unlock the door or figure out the magic Polyam had lain, but the sweet fresh air blew in and _light_ shone from around the door where someone stood.

For a moment, she expected someone to call out her name, to collect her gently and take her away from this place.

The grave-robbers held the light close to her face, even as she rasped in pain as the light burned sensitive eyes too used to the dark. They were examining her clothes, one went through the possessions she had, and they were seeing that they were noble make.

She covered her eyes with her hands when they let her go, listening as they came to the realization that she was worth a heavy ransom alive.

They threw her over a shoulder and took her from the room. One of the last things she saw was her workbasket, upset and trampled over and left in the middle of the floor.

When they stepped over Pirisi's body in the corridor, Sandry finally lost consciousness and returned to the blissful dark.

* * *

><p><em>The next morning, after breakfast, they brought Tris down to the office of Stone Circle's Dedicate Superior and left her in the waiting room. Beside her they placed her few bags, completely packed. She had not said a word. There was no point in it, and by now she knew how stupid it was to try to talk to someone who was determined to get rid of her.<em>

_Sandry's Book__, Tamora Pierce._

* * *

><p>She never expected anyone to come for her and was not surprised in the least when no one did.<p>

After the dedicates had packed her things and brought her to the Dedicate Superior's office, Tris sat and stared out the window in the oppressive silence until the hail came and glass shattered and everything looked as destroyed as she felt.

The _Honoured_ Dedicate's face was pale and drawn and terrified. She called in others to talk for hours while Tris was bundled to a cold stone room and left there to try and sit as comfortably as was possible.

She was more alone then she had ever been before.

Tris told herself that it wasn't as if she had been expecting a saviour. If even_ these_ people, who were supposed to know about magic and gods' compassion, looked at her and saw a monster then she must be a monster.

She could be a monster.

* * *

><p><em>Daja bit her lip. She didn't dare cry – it would mean losing water, with none to replace it.<em>

_Far away, so far that it didn't seem real, she heard the crack of canvas. Was it a dream? Slowly, she turned her head. She was in the trench of a swell – all she could see were the peaks of water on either side._

_Sandry's Book__, Tamora Pierce._

* * *

><p>Daja was well and truly delirious when she heard the ship again. She opened her salt-crusted eyes to see it toss anchor not far from where she was.<p>

_It almost looks real_, she thought, closing her eyes again.

There was a splash, as if a boat was being lowered into the water, and then the sound of wood creaking and the smell of metal and the splashes of oars. Something grabbed the back of her shirt and unceremoniously pulled her overboard. Her knees hit the edge of the boat with a crack that truly convinced her she was awake, that this was not a dream. She struggled when she saw her suraku tip off the raft, bob once and then began to sink.

One of the sailors cuffed her over the head and she sunk to the bottom of the boat, her eyes fluttering.

"She's nearly dead, Enahar," a cold female voice said. A foot nudged Daja, not gently. "She wasn't worth the time."

"Traders are some of the best sailors in the world; a girl this age is worth twelve of your slaves and a good number of your pirates as well," a man answered. "And if she's not, she's worth only a drop over the side. We won't even have to slow the ship."

* * *

><p><em>Roach growled and fought as the guards dragged his hands out in front of him. He knew it was useless, but he didn't care – they'd remember him, at least!<em>

_The judge didn't look at his face, only his hands. "Docks," she said, and yawned._

_Sandry's Book__, Tamora Pierce._

* * *

><p>Even as he was dragged from the courtroom, he fought.<p>

The guards waited until they were out of sight of the judge and the Bag onlookers before one of them held him and the other hit him on the temple with the hard baton he wore on his belt.

When Roach woke up, he was in a wagon, in chains. It was loud: people yelled around him, chains clanked, the cheap wagon shuddered and rocked as the cobbled stones seeming to attack the wheels on each turn, instead of being rolled over. His head hurt and he couldn't see out of one eye. He tried to feel it, to see how swollen it was, but his hands couldn't reach up to his face from where they were chained to the metal ring on the wagon's base. His stomach clenched alarmingly when he tried to duck his head to his hands, and he righted himself quickly, breathing deeply until the stomach-flutters passed.

He looked around carefully at the other criminals who surrounded him, all on the way to the docks for punishment for their crimes. Some were other children, but most were adults. A nab when you've got two 'x's could get you time on the docks, but so could murder or other sorts of violence and Roach knew he had to be tougher than he had ever been on the streets. There was already too much attention for the boy across from Roach, who was wailing. Roach could almost _feel _the weight of the attention directed so close to himself.

Roach kicked the other boy in the thigh. "Shut your gob," he hissed, and spat on him when he complied.

He had survived on the streets. This was worse, but he would survive, him for himself. No bleedin'-heart of a Bag would save him; never had and never would take interest in gutter-snipe scum like Roach. He was on his own. He jutted out his jaw and tried to not look scared.

* * *

><p><em>And time passed. And it did no favours to any of us.<em>

* * *

><p>Niko never did return to Summersea.<p>

He thought about it, many times, as the months passed, but always with a sense of guilt that cut into his stomach like a jagged piece of glass. It wouldn't quit. He heard about the earthquake that destroyed a portion of the Hub and thought about returning, but put it off. He didn't hear about how the pirates had nearly decimated Winding Circle until late in the winter. By that time, the news of a magical epidemic had reached him in Capchen and he stayed away. It wasn't his particular fear of disease; any sane man would act the same way. It still made him feel like a coward.

After it was over, he received a letter from Honoured Dedicate Crane: Frostpine had died on the water, trying to bolster the Temple's defences when the pirates attacked; Lark died protecting some novices inside, before the pirates were driven from the shores by the Great Mages in the temple; Rosethorn and Moonstream both succumbed to the Blue Pox as they fought to stop the epidemic. It was part of life, he told himself, his hands shaking enough that he had to put the letter carrying the news down. There was nothing he could have changed. He hadn't _known_.

Still, the sense that he had left something important undone would haunt him until he died three years later, alone except for those magical colleagues who happened to be nearby and able to tear themselves away from work when they heard that the great Niklaren Goldeye had grown ill.

He had everything he had ever wanted from his life, and wondered why it all seemed so empty.

And Niko closed his eyes.

* * *

><p><em>Frightened of the shadow on the wall; I think it looks a bit too much like me. Search my life for evidence of truth... can you hear me? Can you hear me now?<em>

_Evidence__, Tara Maclean._

* * *

><p>Fourteen year old Sandrilene fa Toren sat in a room with the window covered.<p>

Sandry had collected scraps of cloth while captive – she was so often cold, and could bring them together with less thread than she should have been able to – and she was still wearing this dress of rags. Bits of cloth hung from her sleeves, from the gown, from her shoulders and waist. She had always hated veils, but she had constructed a hood of various pieces of thick, dark cloth, so that she could shield her eyes from light, if the need arose. In the near dark, she dipped her pen into the well and cleaned it carefully. As she wrote, her mind wandered. She had been living in this hunting cabin, far in the northern province of Namorn's western border for nearly a year and liked it better out of any of her cousin's other hospitalities. When she had first been brought to Namorn, after Berenene paid her ransom, it had been her cousin's intention to bring Sandry to court.

The Empress's mage had taken one look at the skinny, pale, cold-eyed girl and swiftly advised the Empress to reconsider. She didn't realize, then, that her magic was visible to any with the power to see it, that it was woven in tangles around herself that would prove not only impenetrable, but dangerous to anyone trying to pry, but Isha did. Every instinct in the Great Mage was to get her Empress away from this girl with the blue gaze of the Syth in the deceptive winter days when the sun shone, but the water was cold enough to sap the life from anyone foolish or unlucky enough to fall overboard.

Since it was what she wanted, Sandry did not insist.

Living with Berenene's daughters did not work, either. Sandry frightened them.

So, alone but for a small group of servants sent to tend her, she was penning a letter in the near-darkness, with only the tendrils of light that managed to slip past her defences to see by. It made for slow, tedious work, but the servants knew by now the fight the young stitch-witch would put up to keep herself in the dark.

Bad things happened when the lights came.

Sandry enjoyed the country cottage because the servants did not make her fight them for darkness; after only a few of her demonstrations on just how much _cloth_ surrounded them, and what she could do with it, her servants and tutors were willing to leave her alone. It was dark much of the year, this far north and the heavy draperies left over the windows took care of the rest. She was cold and ignored and alone, but it also meant she was unbothered and unafraid.

Sandry, after losing her entire family, after a year held hostage by criminals, after being dragged around the world and ransomed, was very tired of being afraid.

But she was also cousin to the Empress and rich in lands and very nearly marriageable, according to her cousin's last letter.

If she couldn't stay here, then she would find somewhere else. Somewhere she could control. Somewhere the light couldn't find her, where she would never be taken from again. Where she wouldn't have to be afraid...

She glanced at the letter from Berenene, the one she was drafting a reply to.

_I do regret to inform you, dear cousin_, it read, in a small paragraph near the bottom, _that your uncle, Vedris of Emelan, has recently passed away from a disease of the heart. I know you spent little time with him, when you were younger, but your father was very fond of his uncle and would want you to pray for him, if you can._

Sandry chewed the end of her pen. The rest of the letter was more important; her cousin rarely wrote, and this letter was too sweet. It wasn't _quite_ a summons to the capital, but it extolled its many... charms. It wasn't _quite_ a notice that Sandry would soon be expected to marry to further Namorn's goals, but the virtues and traits of several 'suitable' young noblemen were listed. Sandry could read between the lines. She would be taken from her haven and expected to share her life with someone else. The likelihood of her married life being one of solitude and shadows was unlikely, at best.

That wasn't acceptable.

So, Sandry was drafting a letter to her royal cousin wishing Berenene her deepest sympathies over the loss of an ally in the Duke, her dear great-uncle. Berenene was clever. She would know that forcing her young cousin into a suitable marriage would be possible, but costly and – judging from what must have been told to her through her daughters' stories – violent. On the other hand, what better use of her young relation than to create a new ally in Emelan, a Duchess who owed her a favour that would not easily be repayed and never forgotten?

She sprinkled sand on the letter, too impatient to allow it to dry by air before sending it back to the capital. Sandry knew that transport to Namorn, an army to allow her to take the Citadel from the old man's sons and her release from Berenene's control would be costly. She hoped Berenene understood that while it was a risky option, any other would be tremendously unwise.

Sandry would not be forced into the light again. On this note, she really would insist.

* * *

><p><em>People, don't you understand the child needs a helping hand or he's going to grow into an angry young man someday.<em>

_In the Ghetto__, Elvis Presley._

* * *

><p>Briar bent at the knees to catch the bag that was tossed to him. It was dark, and easy enough to slip on the wet docks where he worked. A fall could mean the ribbing of the other dock workers, or it could mean an injury that stopped him from working the night. All Briar had was the few astrals this job provided and he could not afford to take any risks... there was always some other bloke willing to take your job when it meant the difference between a leaky roof and none at all, between being hungry and being starved.<p>

He scowled as he tossed off the bag and turned to catch another from on deck. Only a stupid Bag would be dumb enough to let so many handle their possessions in the dark. He was sure at least half of the men he worked with had already pocketed something valuable, and the other half didn't only because they were too stupid to find a chance. Except for him; he didn't because that creepy girl on the deck hadn't yet taken her eyes off him.

He spat. Thinking of stealing and working on the docks... He had thought it would be different, somehow, this _new life_ of his. After a year in the convict gang on the docks in Sotat, there had been nothing left for him but to bet it all on an escape. He had never been able to keep his mouth shut when he thought of something smart to say, and he wouldn't survive another winter on reduced rations, extra loads, and the beatings of the guards. That was nothing on the convicts themselves; every new load of them meant more men and boys hoping to secure their place in the pecking order by taking down someone smaller than themselves. He had earned himself a new name – Briar – by always having something sharp handy to defend himself with, but it had been close too many times and he had the scars to prove it.

When it had worked, and he and two others he could trust to do what he said had swam out and stowed away on a ship in harbour, he had thought he had a new start. But nothing had changed. Half starved by the time they docked, Briar had emerged in the port city of Summersea, Emelan. He was thinner than he had been before, starved from the voyage, weak from sickness, and with two 'x's on his hands. He was faced with the choice of starving to death, slowly, selling himself to people who fancied that sort of thing, or working the dock crews in Summersea's harbour.

He was paid for his labour, but it was only enough for lodgings slightly less crowded than the dock's cells in Sotat, and less food than he was given when on regular work duties in the crew.

There were no guards, but he was just as caged and he wondered, bitterly, what he had thought he could change.

Then she stepped onto the dock and it was like the clock started ticking, like time had been stopped, waiting, for years. He had thought, when she was in the deeper darkness of the deck, that she was wearing a cloak of some kind, but as she drew closer, he saw that it was a gown sewn (was it sewn? Were threads actually holding it together?) of thousands of bits of rags of cloth, in hundreds of colours. It moved, constantly, in the ocean breeze, though Briar couldn't be sure it was the wind. Her hood covered her hair, but she was looking at him, keeping eye contact the entire time she was helped ashore. He looked away and spat, nervous, and when he looked up there she was, the bluest eyes he had ever seen hidden within layers of cloth and darkness.

"I'm Sandrilene," the girl with the too-blue eyes said.

He rolled his eyes. "An' that's what to me?"

She smiled again, and it caught his attention though he kept his expression disdainful. "Nothing, right now, I suppose," she said. "But I'll be living in town for a while, and I could use someone who knows Summersea well."

"I'm not looking to be a kept anything," he growled.

"You misunderstand me," she said, and she caught his eye.

"Why me?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied, and she looked so honestly bewildered that he couldn't help but believe her. "But it feels right, doesn't it?"

* * *

><p><em>When I close my eyes I am at the center of the sun and I cannot be hurt by anything this wicked world has done.<em>

_Center of the Sun__, Conjure One._

* * *

><p>Daja tended the sails of the small vessel they had stolen, and pretended not to hear the agonized breathing of her friend and fellow runaway.<p>

She tried to harden her heart; he had been stabbed in the belly by the pirate on guard. It was her fault. She had let her guard down once they had snuck successfully on board and actually got the ship out of harbour without raising an alarm from the pirates on Starns. How was she to know that the guard had fallen asleep below-deck? That he would be awakened when they celebrated their freedom too loudly? That he would stab Jayat before she knew he was there? She used the metal on his belt and boots to drag him from the deck and into the water, holding him under, but it only meant he was _as_ dead as her friend... Jayat would not survive that kind of stabbing with just her to care for him any more than his pirate murderer would survive the water with boots and belt dragging him, inexorably, to the deeps.

Daja wasn't one for _saving _lives, after all. She could create better boom-stones, ones that exploded by magic and not just by pressure, ones that held shrapnel for more damage, small ones that could be thrown by hand... she could make sure that the pirates would never lose the Battle Islands to any who wanted to flush them from it, but she could not save her friend, didn't even know where to start.

The endless ocean surrounded her, making her feel too tired to curse. Even pursuers would have been welcome, now. They would punish her and Jayat until the wished they had never tried to escape, but they wouldn't kill the two of them and they wouldn't let Jayat die, not with their magic. The knowledge tainted the freedom she had worked four years to obtain. He would live if the pirates caught them again, but Daja would burn in _pijule fakol _before she turned the ship around to take them back to them.

Before the pirates realized they could use Daja's skills in weapon-making, she had been used as a sailor on the raids. When they attacked some temple to the north, Daja had thought Trader Komi and Bookkeeper Oti must have finally abandoned her. The world had burned as they attacked and were attacked and there was nowhere to run from the screams of sailors dying _right next to her_ and the fear made her want to join them, or else be _anywhere else, please don't leave me here. _When they had almost been killed by a boom-stone sent astray when a ship firing them had been attacked, she screamed and threw out her hands and the metal projectile had been sent away.

Enahar had been on her ship, had seen her magic. After they had limped home, she had been put to work using that magic for her captors. It was hard. She nearly lost the fingers on her left hand – still couldn't really use the last two – when a boom-stone exploded while she was building it. There were the pirates to deal with – more dangerous than the boom-stones, with twice the temper and half the fuse, she liked to tell Jayat – but it was done on land, where she could run if needed.

But after three years working in their forges, they wanted her to sail to war again, and something had snapped inside her.

Jayat gasped awake and moaned before closing his eyes again, trying to escape the pain by shifting his shoulders.

Sitting on deck, Daja grabbed a rope that needed unknotting and bit her lip hard.

He was her only friend. On Starns, there was little time or room for kindnesses, but he had shown them when she arrived battle-scarred and grieving and afraid. Without him, she would have been completely alone in a world that seemed full of –

She looked up from her rope and starred at the still boy, wrapped in a blanket and tucked into a safe corner. He didn't move, no matter how long she stared and no sound of breathing reached her over the creak and splash of the ship moving through the waves. Eventually, she looked away.

The ocean was empty and endless and though she had prayed every day to her gods and dead family to be free and on a ship again, all her years on Starns, she found herself hating it. The pirates had ruined the sea for her as well, then.

She stood and walked to the helm, adjusting the bearing towards Summersea. Why she wanted to arrive there in a pirate vessel she had no idea, but it had felt like freedom in her impression of it, during battle. It had stood against the pirates and had not fallen to them, and she needed that strength now. Maybe when she arrived, someone would be interested in an ex-Trader, ex-slave, ex-sailor whose only skills were making weapons.

Daja looked towards the horizon, her eyes dry, her back to the body of her lost friend.

Her heart hardened, like steel.

* * *

><p><em>Give me one reason to think you're decent when I am alone, alone, alone. Don't you ever try to bring me back.<em>

_Overdose__, Hurt._

* * *

><p>So they wanted her to talk, now.<p>

After years of silence, the words wouldn't come to her as the blue-robed woman tried to meet her grey gaze, to put across to the wild, withdrawn girl just how much they _cared_, how they only wanted to _help_ her now, how _sorry_ they all were...

Please. Tris knew the way of people, now. And it was people in these same robes who had locked her up the first time, anyway. That room hadn't lasted long, once she realised if she got mad enough she could shake the earth and not just call a storm or some lightning (both of which worked well on people, but not so well on stone and plaster). They had sent her away from their precious temple. First to a home in the city (it had been on the river, simple enough to divert the waters and destroy the building) then to a farm (she destroyed their crops with hail), then to a hospital. That had held her longer. There was a lot they could do to numb her will and keep her confused with their spells and potions. Potions kept her asleep, most of the time and spells kept her silence. She spent half the time not knowing who she was, or why she was there. The only things she really remembered were that she didn't want to talk to them, and that no one wanted her.

They told her she was a monster, a danger, a freak. She didn't hear them, sometimes, but usually believed them when she did.

They didn't think to increase the dosages as one birthday passed, then two. Her powers grew stronger and she grew angrier, but the spells and potions remained the same until one day she woke up and she could hear the wind and feel the strength of the storms again.

She survived that, but the worst of them in there didn't. They locked her away again, in some attic above an empty room in a city she hadn't seen before. She didn't think she'd seen it before, anyway... Everything was still a little hazy in places and there were things she didn't like to think about too much. She liked the solitude, liked that it was broken occasionally by pigeons and mice but not by people insisting she explain herself or try to make nice. A woman brought food to the apartment below, most days, and a fresh pot when she remembered. Tris didn't mind. That tiny attic room with no light and broken windows that let in the birds and winter winds was the closest she had had to a home in six years.

She didn't stay in the room, anyway. The broken window let birds in, and they let her out. She stayed close to the windowsill, at first. Then the wind tempted her to another corner, a cloud just out of sight to an eave above, a new kind of bird to the edge of the upper roofs. She was at home with the pigeons and the sharp, biting winds more than she had ever been with people and she didn't believe her breezes would let her fall, no matter how close to the edge she walked.

Eventually, the food stopped coming and she wandered further. Rooftop to rooftop, taking what she needed. Constables were called, but lightning _had _always been useful in dealing with people. She had learned that years ago. Eventually, they sent people with magic and Tris's lightning hit the air around her as if there was a circle of glass separating her from the strangers in the brightly coloured robes. She had wanted to scream her rage, but she had glared at them instead until they whispered words that made her fall into a deep sleep.

It was when she woke that they people in blue began speaking to her, softly and earnestly until she wanted to roll her eyes, but she looked out the window instead. They told her about her journey to Emelan, about Winding Circle and ambient magic and Tris thought that if they cared about this sort of thing, they should have done so long ago. She looked at the door they locked behind them and wondered how many she could kill if she used the fault lines in the earth that ran through the middle of the temple grounds.

She did calculations and listened to the madness of the voices no one else heard as well-meaning people tried to break the silence that surrounded her like a shield.

One night, she heard a voice as the wind blew from the city, over the temple walls and to her sensitive ears. They always remembered to lock the door when they left her, but the window was open. She was on the third floor, and she supposed they thought it meant she was trapped, but they hadn't been paying attention to her. They never did. She climbed from the window of her locked room (and they say they're _different_, but still they _lock me away_) and escaped to the roofs and then down to the winding paths. The voice would be hard to find, but she liked what it talked about. A girl, explaining how a place could be their own. Their own, and never taken from them, never filled with people expecting them to pay for what they are... Tris would wander the rooftops a long time before she found that voice again. She waited on the roofs until she could be sure. A boy her age climbed out to meet her, barefoot and sure of himself as he entered her domain.

"I'm Briar," the boy said.

"Tris." It had taken her a long, long moment to remember what to say, or how.

"Duchess wants to talk to you, but she's too much of a sniffer-skirt to come out here on the roof."

"She's the one who talks. About having a place of your own."

The boy shrugged and spat. She wrinkled her nose at him and he grinned. "I s'pose. There's a girl who can make these boom-stones, like the pirates use. Can make them out of nothin', and the Duchess has soldiers to use. I know the city, and all the secret ways in and out the place she wants to take... and she figures you can do more than spark, Coppercurls. So, what do you say? You want in on this whole 'home' business?"

Tris looked out over the roofs of the city before letting him lead her inside.

* * *

><p><em>Sandry was sitting in a throne that certainly was not in the citadel now, a sinister creation of iron and carved wood. Briar was nearly invisible in the darkness. He leaned against the wall behind Sandry's throne, watching the soldier who reported to them that citizens were outside the gates. They were terrified by death of the Duke, terrified by this stranger who had shown up in the wake of it, bringing with her Namornese soldiers and new rules they didn't understand, terrified of the soldiers the Duke's son was sending against the city. Sandry didn't look up from her embroidery.<em>

"_Oh, kill them all," she said. "What does it matter, anyway?"_

_In the darkness, Briar grinned._

_Waiting on the Abyss's Stare__, KrisEleven_

* * *

><p>Sandry rose from her throne alone. No one lingered; she employed no guards, no advisors, no attendants. Three years had taught everyone here to stay out of her way as much as possible.<p>

As she walked from the throne room into the corridor, Briar trailed behind her. His footsteps were silenced by the carpeted floors, his shadow muffled by the tapestries that covered every wall, but the threads were cotton and they knew he passed.

Those threads reached for her, and the coverings rippled in a wave as she walked by.

They were one reason she needed no guards in the Citadel. She had had them begun the first evening she had wrested control from the old man's advisors and had taken her place as Duchess and there were few willing to try to harm her when the object of her power was all around them.

An awful lot could be done with tapestries...

Briar and his knives, were another reason, of course.

The girls they were going to see were the last.

"What sort of mood will she be in, do you think?" Sandry asked. She didn't bother to turn her head to address him; she could hardly see him in the shadows.

Briar snorted. "Usual: angry with a hint of crazy."

Sandry smiled at the irony of Briar calling someone _else_ crazy, with him being the way he was.

Behind her, Briar smiled the same smile and looked at her back.

They left the main corridors and entered one of the old servants' wings, empty now of servants. It had access to one of the highest turrets of the Citadel and that was where Tris wanted to be. They climbed the stairs single file, with Sandry grabbing handfuls of her skirts to keep them off the steps and out of her way. There were no carpets, here, only stone floors and stone walls and flickering lightning balls lighting the way. Sandry looked away from the ice-blue sparks and scowled. The cloth in her hands shivered.

They reached the top of the tower, Sandry panting a little, Briar still as-ever silent and knocked on the door at the top. Sandry pushed it open without waiting for an answer, since there never was one and entered Tris's rooms.

Sandry suspected they had been storage once, until Tris had taken them for her own. There hadn't been much in the way of windows, but Tris had punched out most of the walls along two sides and escaped out onto the perilous peaks of the roofs.

Sandry stayed back in the room as Briar went out to track down their wayward weather-witch. The Duchess had a very firm opinion on the roof; just because the peaks were flat and you _could _walk on them, didn't mean you should.

Briar's opinion was more of a feeling: anything to get away from the constrictions he felt around himself all the time. Even here, though, away from the dark and the gods-damned fabric blanketing his world in drab silence he felt tied tight.

Maybe it wasn't the Citadel and all its ridiculous pomp and ceremony. Maybe it was him and the anger he felt towards everyone for all the things he wasn't and all the things he didn't have, even now.

He followed the pathway towards the east, because that was where the wind was blowing hardest and found the one person he knew who was angrier than him.

"Hey, Coppercurls!" he shouted. "Duchess wants you."

Her hair was long, past her elbows as it whipped around her head, though Briar supposed the curls would be longer if they weren't constantly tangled and wind-knotted. She turned and walked fearlessly along the peak of the roof, her slate-grey eyes focused on a point somewhere behind him, and not at her feet and never, never on his face.

"_Don't_ call me that," she said as she brushed by, sparks stinging his hands and chest where she got too close.

"Whatever you say," he replied grinning, with teeth.

He followed behind her, keeping his distance; sparks jumped when she got too close to metal, sometimes, and they did hurt when they got you, even if he wouldn't admit it.

When he ducked back through a window and into Tris's room, the two women had already begun their conversation. Briar found a corner out of the way and waited in the darkness for them to finish.

"What do you want?" Tris asked, her voice cold.

"A demonstration. Something over the city to frighten everyone into silence, for a little while. Even a storm would do as long as it keeps them away from the Citadel with their fears and complaints." Tris didn't respond. "They're making me appear weak. With Vedris's son eying Emelan, I can have no leniency on them. You know that. If he wins, we all lose our place here."

Tris and Briar snapped their attention to her. Her blue eyes looked as fearful as they felt, but the threads in her dress barbed, Tris's lightning flashed along the ceiling and Briar flicked the edge of his knives. They had taken this place for theirs. They weren't giving it up.

Sandry looked to Briar. "If you see Daja before I do, tell her to meet me on the wall." Then she was gone.

Briar spat on the floor. "Nobles," he growled, still shaken from her words and covering for that.

Tris didn't answer, but then she hardly ever did. He followed her down the stairs. As they passed each lightning ball, it jumped out to meet her, mingling with the power she stored in her hair. Then, they were past the light and into the darkness of the Citadel. Briar hated walking the passages alone; too many dark corners where something could leap out at you, intent on all forms of nastiness. Walking with Sandry was fine; with the fabrics everywhere, she could practically see. Tris and Daja were okay, too. Daja lit up the metal as she passed, red-hot enough to see by.

Tris didn't bother messing with anything else. Without pausing at the foot of the stairs, lighting began running down her neck and arms, across her back and twining around her waist until she was coated in blue-white sparks that lit the corridors with an eerie glow.

It was by far Briar's favourite way to traverse the Citadel.

"Do you have to stay _behind_ me all the time?" she finally snapped at him. "Don't you know it's _rude?_"

"Haven't noticed much, have you?" Daja drawled from the darkness. Both Briar and Tris spun to meet her, weapons bared. Her teeth flashed in a grin. "Doesn't let anyone get behind him."

"I'll leave you to each other," she said sharply, and left, taking her lightning with her.

"Hey, Trader."

"Urchin," she replied, insult for insult, which made Briar grin. "I heard there was trouble, again."

"Some respectable types thinking their lots are tough," he replied. They both spat. "Duchess wants you on the wall."

"Well, if the _Duchess_ wants it," she drawled. "You going into the crowds?"

"Gets me out of this carpet shop a while," he said, and her teeth flashed in a grin again. "I like the streets, and people talk when they're afraid. They mention a person to blame for a confrontation with Sandry gone bad, I follow the rumours home to the leader... no more needless rebellion making Coppercurls and the Duchess all snitty."

"Watch your back, streetrat," she said as she disappeared down a corridor, candle-sticks and fixtures glowing red as she passed.

"Always do," she heard him say behind her, but when she turned he had disappeared.

Daja walked through the darkness, interspersed with the dull flashes of red-hot metal that lit her way. She didn't like this part of their arrangement with Sandry, wouldn't put up with being anyone's _pet_ again, except that when she refused the first time, there had been no talk of her losing her place here. Sandry had nodded, bitten her lip and managed to find a way without her.

If she had wanted to, Daja could hide in the dungeons and forges of the Citadel for the rest of her life, and Sandry would ask nothing of her. Briar could shadow nothing but the gardens, Tris could never leave her rooftops... but then Sandry would be alone in the darkness, and it was something they couldn't bear. Just like Briar or Daja had to go up to the roofs to pull Tris out of the wind and give her someone to not-talk-to other than the birds, and Sandry or Briar could always find their way to her forges when she had been gone too long, or how Sandry and Tris would find Briar in his gardens and bother him until he started paying attention to humans again, they all three of them came when Sandry called because there was a difference between hiding in the dark and being consumed by it.

Daja wondered sometimes, though. Maybe they were just going to be consumed together, instead of one by one.

She shrugged away the thought. At least they wouldn't be alone again.

It was cold outside, Daja thought, but couldn't feel. The rain hissed and sizzled as it hit her heated skin. Sandry was waiting for her.

There was a crowd on the other side of the wall, indistinct through the rain and darkness until they weren't really people at all, only movement and angry voices.

"Briar said he was going to go out into the crowds," Daja said as greeting.

Sandry nodded. "None of the ones that explode, then; something could bounce and hit him. He'll know to stay out of the way of the steam. Set those off."

Daja found the metal balls placed at eye level in the wall, outside which the people of Summersea had gathered to display their anger with the woman who ruled them. Daja heated the metal until just before it would have melted, the water inside vaporizing and straining against the metal that held it.

In her magic, Daja took hold of the delicate pins that kept the compressed steam from spraying into the crowds.

"Whenever you're ready," she told Sandry.

The people had begun to light torches, and Sandry turned her back on them so she didn't see the light.

"Whenever you like."

Daja waited a moment, and then pulled.

* * *

><p>Tris climbed back to her roofs, Daja went to her forge, Briar to his gardens, Sandry to a small room in the Citadel near the servants' quarters that hid most effectively from the sun. If they felt bad for their night's work, they didn't show it. They had done a lot to keep this place, and wondered, sometimes, if it was worth it.<p>

But they would never give it up. Because they had found something that no one had been willing to give them. They had found somewhere safe, and they kept it the only way they knew how, in violence and death.

It was all they had ever known.

After all, no one had been there to save them.

* * *

><p>It's always us<em>, the four said.<em>

_Will of the Empress__, Tamora Pierce._

* * *

><p><em>AN _The end... but not really. I have a companion piece of one-shots all set in this 'verse called Falls the Shadow. If you enjoyed this idea and want to see more, check it out on my profile.


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